Best Places In The World To Retire

Fishing In Panama is excellent.  You can lake fish in Gatun Lake for Peacock Bass or go to the Bayano lakes and River for Snook or you can Ocean fish the Pacific and the Atlantic. the best Oean Fishing can be done as off shore fishing in Pedasi or go to Boca Brava area for Deep sea fishing. The Atlantic fishing is best done from Bocas Del Toro.  Depending on what you want to catch Panama should have the best place to accomplish your fishing plans.  Seasonality also plays a...

Fishing In Panama is excellent.  You can lake fish in Gatun Lake for Peacock Bass or go to the Bayano lakes and River for Snook or you can Ocean fish the Pacific and the Atlantic. the best Oean Fishing can be done as off shore fishing in Pedasi or go to Boca Brava area for Deep sea fishing. The Atlantic fishing is best done from Bocas Del Toro.  Depending on what you want to catch Panama should have the best place to accomplish your fishing plans.  Seasonality also plays a part in when and where to go.

The worst place to retire in Belize is Belize City. A third of the population of Belize lives in Belize City. It is a very large city, not very safe, and not very pretty city, either.
 
There are not really the activities that you are looking for that you would expect in the city, like good shopping or cultural things to do. Those things are not offered in Belize City. However, everywhere else in the country certainly has that. Everywhere else has decent shopping, regional...

The worst place to retire in Belize is Belize City. A third of the population of Belize lives in Belize City. It is a very large city, not very safe, and not very pretty city, either.
 
There are not really the activities that you are looking for that you would expect in the city, like good shopping or cultural things to do. Those things are not offered in Belize City. However, everywhere else in the country certainly has that. Everywhere else has decent shopping, regional nuances that are significant, and they have the beauty that people expect when they come to Belize. Other places have a natural beauty while Belize City just does not have any of that. That is the only place that doesn’t.

Yes, there are islands in Nicaragua and they are amazing. They are the most amazing little slices of heaven you will ever see. We haves keys as well. The Pearl Keys are amazing. They are on the Atlantic side where everybody speaks English so if you are an expat who doesn’t speak Spanish, you can go to the Pearl Keys and get by.
 
I have been to the Little Corn Islands and it is the most amazing place ever. It has turquoise water and white sand. There is no power during the...

Yes, there are islands in Nicaragua and they are amazing. They are the most amazing little slices of heaven you will ever see. We haves keys as well. The Pearl Keys are amazing. They are on the Atlantic side where everybody speaks English so if you are an expat who doesn’t speak Spanish, you can go to the Pearl Keys and get by.
 
I have been to the Little Corn Islands and it is the most amazing place ever. It has turquoise water and white sand. There is no power during the day so you walk everywhere.  There is no need for cars because it is so small that you can literally walk throughout the whole island. They are also very strict with rain water. You are not allowed to waste rain water because they collect it for drinking. They also have these really cool houses made out of old Coca-Cola bottles. They cannot afford to have trash on their island so they do not waste anything. The skylights that they make out of the old bottles are amazing. 
 
We go diving and snorkeling, both of which is amazing. It is better than looking at the Long Beach Aquarium in California. There is no pollution in Little Corn. The reefs are pristine and it has an unfathomable amount of sea life there. You will see all kinds of fishes. I have been swimming with sharks there. It’s heaven. I have snorkeled in other places in the world but Little Corn is the best. 
 
There are also islands on the Pacific side called isletas. They are on the lagoon and you can also go there. You can rent a house or stay in a hotel on the islands. Overall, there is about over three hundred islands in Nicaragua. The joke is that when the volcano in Nicaragua erupted, it made one volcano for everyday of the year. You can go on tours and see all these islands. You will see mansions there because some people bought the islands and built their mansions on them. Some of the islands are really big and some of them are really very small. Some of them have houses and they have jungle all around them. One of the islands here in Nicaragua is really famous because it is inhabited, but only by monkeys. There are a lot of different monkeys on that island. The reason they are there is because a veterinarian owns that island and he rescues monkeys. Some people in Nicaragua have monkeys as pets but they do not know what to do with them because they are wild so he treats them and then he liberates them on his island.
 
There are also some islands that are uninhabited by anybody. They are just jungles. They are usually the smaller islands that nobody can build on but you can take a boat and have a picnic on the islands. For the islands that are inhabited, you can also explore if they let you. There are a lot of locals there, too. There are people who were actually born on those islands. Their grandparents moved there and generations have been born there. You will see them fish. They’d be standing close to the island but they’ll be on the water fishing. Some of them have sold their pieces of the island to wealthy people but they decided to stay there. You can hang out with the locals on the islands. I find them really cool. If you talk to them really respectfully and you’re genuinely curious about their lifestyle, they would even invite you to their house and they will show you the ropes on how to be an islander. I have been really nosey and I have asked. 
 
One time we were in a boat ride with my family and I asked a guy if he’s from there and he said yes. I asked him what it’s like to live there and he asked if we wanted to come to his house. So we got out and he showed us his home, his family, etc. We asked him to teach us how to fish and he did. He also showed us how they make the nets, which is pretty cool. He actually asked us to have lunch at his house and eat the fish that we caught, which we declined because I didn’t want to eat something that they could eat for probably a few more meals. They need it more. It is really not appropriate that we eat at these people’s houses when they don’t have much. So we told them they could keep our fish. The experience was priceless. Meeting them was priceless. So literally, we had no reason to take more from them because they gave us a lot already. Every time we go out there and we see him in the little pangas or little boats, we always say hi. It’s pretty cool. You can also go swimming out there. They gave me a water lily to take home, too. It is sweet. These are things that you will start noticing when you start living in Nicaragua. You will realize that there are intangible things that are way more valuable than material items.

 

(Beach on Little Corn Island, Nicaragua, pictured.)

One of the things to know about living abroad is that life is going to be different, so you should be open-minded and non-judgmental about it. We're flipping sides here. We're going from being in our comfort zone, in a place where everybody looks like us and we’re going to be the minority in the new country. We're not going to fit in 100%.
 
I was actually having this conversation the other day with somebody who owns a very big blog about living abroad. ...

One of the things to know about living abroad is that life is going to be different, so you should be open-minded and non-judgmental about it. We're flipping sides here. We're going from being in our comfort zone, in a place where everybody looks like us and we’re going to be the minority in the new country. We're not going to fit in 100%.
 
I was actually having this conversation the other day with somebody who owns a very big blog about living abroad.  They're saying that, once you leave, you aren't going to fit in a 100% in a country that you're going to. You’ll always a little bit of a foreigner - an outsider. And when you come back, you aren't going to 100% fit in America or the country that you're coming from, because you have changed. You have opened your eyes. You have had an experience that is not the norm and you have evolved. You’ll change in ways that you can't really expect but it's always in a good way.

 

(Pictured to the right and above: teaching orphans to surf in Costa Rica.)

 So you just kind of end up with maybe one foot in Ecuador and one foot in America or wherever you're from. You're never going to fit in 100% in one place. That's okay. People might not even notice when you come back to America, but you don’t notice. They'll start to notice the way in which you're different and you'll start to appreciate it more. 
 
Another thing to know about moving abroad relates to planning. It's really actually quite good to have somebody on your team to help plan, because one of the most common things that happens is when you don't have clear plan when you move, a lot of well-meaning people will try to help you, but also a lot of people try to take advantage of you. You might attract situations and people that don't have your best interests in mind. For example, if you look different and you're moving from a different country they might assume you have money. You don't want to just take advice from the first people that you meet when you get to your new country. Sometimes, even on forums, people have their agendas in mind and their best interests, not yours.
 
You want to get an objective perspective.  It could be anybody who has experience in that country that you're moving to and has positive reviews. That's really important because I can't tell you how many times I’ve been on an airplane and heard someone sitting next to me or behind me or in front of me, talking very loudly, giving advice to someone who's coming to Costa Rica or Mexico for the first time. The person giving the advice seems always to be a foreigner who's been there for maybe a year or even less. In some cases they've been there like 3 months or 6 months. In any case, they are giving really bad advice and very wrong information to an unsuspecting person who's sitting next to them on a plane. That's where it starts. It starts there and it doesn't end while you're in the country. People want to share their information with you but you can't be the judge of whether or not it's good or bad information.

 

(Pictured to the right and above: working in Punta Pacifica, Panama City, Panama.)

When people move to a new country, they tend to be very much more trusting than they would be at their country of origin. In a normal day, when we go to work, for example, we get in our cars, we drive to work and then we go off to where we work and we see all of our co-workers. We don't tend to ask any strangers for life advice or any type of advice on the side of the road or inside of a restaurant or just anywhere. What happens when people go abroad is they don't have any close connections; friends, co-workers or any family members so the first people they meet become their comfort zone. You want to be able to have some selection of who those people are and not just the first people you meet.
 
For example, a lot of people move to Costa Rica, for example (and this can happen anywhere) and then they want to have social gatherings, so they might invite people to come over to their home who they met in the first month or so or even in the first year that they've been living in a place. They invite a lot of the locals, like local surfers, used to tell me that these people are their friends. They come down every year for a few months and they tell me that they see them every year.  Even if just one of those people is not well meaning that person could tip off somebody that you have a flat screen TV or whatever you have that has a value in your house. Somebody could break into your house and know exactly where to go to steal something because one of your acquaintances told them.
 
This is true especially if you're going to a country where the income is low, in Nicaragua for example, where their per capita income is one of the lowest in Latin America, just above Haiti.  When you make more in a day what they can make in a year, they could be really good people but they could be in such a desperate need that they would steal or something like that to get by.
 
I wish I could tell every expat moving abroad, just keep a little bit of that filter and barrier and self-awareness. Before you invite people to your home and take people's advice, you really need to get to know them. If you can come from that approach where you know that these other things are possible (even though they are not necessarily going to happen to you but has happened to other people), then you can choose your friends and your inner circle with more care. If you do this, you'll end up having a more positive experience and you might even end up realizing sooner rather than later, these people are not really nice friends.

 

(Pictured to the right and above: overlooking Mayan ruins in Mexico.)

 
Your caution should extend to other foreigners as well. There are foreigners who have been in the country for a long time. Maybe they are business people. They might also be there for the wrong reasons or not have your best interest in mind when there’s a business deal, real estate transaction, or other similar events. You have got to think like this and take caution wherever you go.
 
In Nicaragua, Mexico or Ecuador, you’re probably not going to be able to depend on the local justice system for anything when something goes wrong. It's not realistic in most cases. You really have to be your own judge of everything. I don't want it to seem like a dire warning but I have seen people who move abroad completely drop everything and just want to be friends with everybody at the same time and make decisions that they would not make back in California or Colorado or New York City. I would just say, keep your head on and stay smart.
 
On the other side, you should enjoy the place you’re moving to.  Wherever you go, get to know your surroundings very well. A lot of people, because they do research on the Internet, will pick one place, move there, and then end up in their daily routines. That's great, but then they miss out on a lot more of the country. Take advantage of where you are.  Usually the cost of traveling is lower once you get down there. I when I lived in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, I think that I literally drove all around the country multiple times. I don't know if there's any stone I left unturned. And I was surprised at how few of the locals or foreigners had ever been to most of the places I visited, and how people tended to just go to the main places.  You really get to see the local culture and the beauty when you go off the beaten path. 
 
In Nicaragua, for example, I went to most of the beaches between San Juan del Sur and the tip of Nicaragua, up by El Salvador.  And then, one day in 2008, (I had a driver at the time that I paid US $100 per month) I decided to explore some of the towns in the towns in the mountains.  I was in a little town called Aposentillo, about 45 minutes north of Chinandega.  I drove from there to Estelí, Jinotega, Matagalpa, and many very small, mountain towns.  Some of them didn’t even have hotels.
 
Along the way, I got to see a lot of beautiful pottery.  Some of the towns didn’t even have a restaurant, so instead of eating at a restaurant, I remember eating at someone’s house.  The locals were very surprised, even though I speak fluent Spanish.   They wanted to know who was this blonde haired, 25 year old girl, driving a blue Xterra, coming into our town to walk around and visit.  It was really cool. I love doing things like that, and have done similar things in every country I go to, even, for example, in Thailand, from which I just returned.  I highly recommend expats do it as well. 
 
Slow travel is better.  If you can, I recommend that you go somewhere for several months or even a year and really explore the entire country and then decide where you want to live.  In my experience and the experiences of my clients, that is the way you’re going to find where you would feel most at home.
 
Take advantage of being in a new place.  You will be surprised.  You’ll end up going places that aren’t really on the tourist map.